1. Field of Use
This invention relates generally to the reading of documents by a reader/sorter, for selecting a pocket into which the document is sorted and, more specifically, to the translation of document character codes into data processor character codes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A reader/sorter typically has one or more read heads for reading fields of information on documents such as checks having MICR, OMR, or OCR encoded data fields. The information is read by the reader/sorter, processed by a controller, and transferred to a central processor unit which, under software control and in real time, selects a pocket for sorting the document. The character codes read from the documents include a number of special characters as well as numeric and alphabetic characters.
Prior art systems having a reader sorter on a subsystem interpreted the codes by means of time-consuming software routines.
To improve the code translation performance, later reader/sorter data processing systems such as Honeywell H200 Data Processing System, used a programmable read only memory (PROM) to translate character codes. This however, made for an inflexible system limited to only one character code set. This inflexibility is particularly evident when the data processing system and reader/sorter are linked to a variety of foreign host processing systems (normally via a communications link). The data must be translated via time-consuming software routines from the native-to-foreign code set prior to file transmission.
It should be understood that the references cited herein are those which the applicants are aware of and are presented to acquaint the reader with the level of skill in the art and may not be the closest reference to the invention. No representation is made that any search has been conducted by the applicants.